Nobody in Broncos Country wants to say goodbye to DeMarcus Ware. He’s a hero in Denver for as many reasons as there are diamonds in a Super Bowl 50 ring.

Sadly, it’s time for Ware to take his Hall of Fame bona fides and get moving down the road to Canton, Ohio, because football is cruel on the body and crueler as a business.

The Broncos simply have too many holes on their depth chart to re-sign a free agent linebacker with a bad back that turns 35 years old before Denver plays its next game. Even a $5 million salary would be too much for Ware, considering he missed six games this past season and contributed only four sacks.

But let’s not get it twisted: The Broncos are going to miss Ware. Heck, they missed him last fall when Ware broke his arm in September and the leadership void in the locker room slowly became a black hole sucking energy from the defending Super Bowl champions.

So, while all the idle dreams and loose talk around the Broncos is about whether Denver should make a run at a veteran quarterback such as Tony Romo or Philip Rivers, my theory is the reboot of the Broncos needs to begin on the defensive side of the football, where the team needs to get stronger in the trenches and steadier in demeanor.

Yes, it seems logical, if not imperative, that general manager John Elway must go shopping in the free-agent market to remake Denver’s wretched offensive line. But with close to $40 million in anticipated salary cap space to operate, may I humbly suggest the Broncos also take a long look at spending some of their money on a veteran leader who might be able to step comfortably in Ware’s shoes, as both an impact defender and a locker-room presence?

If the Broncos need to say goodbye to Ware, they should ask free agent Arizona defensive lineman Calais Campbell to come home to Denver.

Campbell is the pride of South High School. He stands 6-foot-8 and weighs 300 pounds, but it’s his smile and heart that make the biggest impression. With back-to-back Pro Bowl appearances in 2014 and 2015, Campbell has the credentials to fill the gap missing in the Denver defense when Malik Jackson took the money and ran to Jacksonville a year ago. Although Campbell celebrates his 31st birthday on Sept. 1, the big man still has big game.

Despite the unsettling departure of longtime friend Gary Kubiak and the disappointment of a 9-7 season, Elway seems unshaken, steadfast in his belief the Broncos will be right back in the playoff hunt. And Elway has said one thing that deserves to be underlined twice: “I want to make sure we don’t take a step back on defense.”

It’s always about the money in the NFL, and if the largest mountain of cash conceivable is what Campbell wants most from what figures to be his last big contract, then he will have to go play somewhere other than Denver. But could Campbell be lured by the appeal of playing alongside superstar Von Miller, the chance to come home to Colorado and the opportunity to scratch an itch left unscratched when the Cardinals lost to Pittsburgh in Super Bowl XLIII? Campbell and Derek Wolfe on the same defensive line might look pretty, pretty good.

With no surefire, easy answer at quarterback, especially if new coach Vance Joseph commits to finding out whether Paxton Lynch can grow into the position, maybe the quickest way to get Denver back to the Super Bowl is to refortify a strong defense that won the Broncos a championship in the first place.

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